1 World Cafe

Perhaps World Cafe is the most flexible of the mutual methods I’m covering in this sequence. I’ve found this can be the easiest to explain and to adapt to circumstances.

People meet around small tables. So groups of four to six people work best. Round tables are best and as there may be issues with noise levels, smaller tables are better.However, it is easy to worry too much about furniture.  I’ve found I can usually manage with whatever is available.

It is easy to combine World Café with other types of participatory leadership. So, for example, follow a speaker with debate around tables.

Some Guidelines

The reason for the tables is people need to draw their ideas with pens and large sheets of paper. So Participatory Appraisal tools can be used. The 2 methods work well together. Depending on the time you have, you can at intervals move people around. Work out a method that leaves 1 person at the original table, who can explain the paperwork to newcomers, and split the rest around other tables. (I once managed to accidentally bring everyone back to their original table groups, so you need to be careful!)  The next session begins with the person who stays explaining the thinking of the original group and then the others bring insights from their tables.

This works best, as do all participatory methods, where you have a clear question to discuss at the beginning. This is why a speaker may not be the best option as they’re liable to introduce too much information.  The focus with all these methods is sharing of knowledge and experience.

Usually the session ends with some sort of plenary sharing, perhaps by pinning the papers to the walls. People can look at them over coffee and then share impressions and agree action steps.  Notes can be produced and circulated to all participants.

The best text, written by the people who originated the method is “The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter” by Juanita Brown, David Isaacs, Cafe Community World and Margaret J. Wheatley.  The World Café website summarises the method under “Useful Information” in the primary navigation.

0 Five Best Intermediate Body Websites

This is my second ever video and part of a short series.  The first looked at the five worst Intermediate Body websites and this one reviews the five best.

One issue I’m aware of is negativity.  The truth is these sites are disappointing and this video reflects my disappointment.  I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, when I reviewed feedback about the first video and suggested these sites share a lack of soul.  I don’t mean no time and effort goes into them.  I’m sure a lot of effort has gone into some of them but they seem arms length, peripheral to these organisations’ activity.

They have a low priority.  There is little awareness of what a good website can do for an organisation and how simple it is to transform the way the site functions.  I’m hoping to follow-up these two videos with another to show how websites can have soul.  I reviewed these sites seeking inspiration.  I’ve found inspiration of sorts!  How can organisations such as these, with limited resources create websites with soul?

Anyway, watch the video and see what you think!

One innovation is the captions.  I’m not sure about the speech bubble effect on reflection but captions can be used to underline learning points.  Do you think they work?

Here are the 12 captions for easy reference.  If you haven’t watched the video, you need to see where the captions come up to understand the context of these remarks.

1. Use WordPress.  Free use and full functionality.
2. Use your own images!
3. Avoid acronyms, especially in headings.
4. Address your visitors, say what your site aims to do for them.
5. Honour your promises.
6. A call to action on every page.
7. Follow conventions.  Start with an informative heading.
8. Think about what your visitor will want to know and give it to them.
9. Always have a heading and explanatory text on the home page.
10. Think about how the eye moves around the page.
11. Avoid sliders and other distractions.
12. Text should be in high contrast to its background.

Stop Press:  Black Country Churches Engaged has a new website that seems to be running alongside the old one featured in the video.  It’s worth a look and I may review it in the near future.  I would have expected the old site to include a prominent link to the new.  Presumably it is still active because some contacts have the old url.

Please leave your comments on the video here or on YouTube.

1 Preparing Your Blog Posts

With help from your designer or consultant, you’ve set up a WordPress website with blog,  social media, and email list. Now you’re faced with the prospect of preparing your blog posts.

In this post I’ll write about how I post regularly and in the next about finding content.

You can set things up so that when you post to your blog you automatically post on social media and broadcast to your email list. This saves a lot of time and effort.

Writing

Your big challenge is to write the blog posts. They can be scheduled and so it possible to set up several posts in one session to go out over a few days.

The way I do it requires a kitchen timer. You can purchase one from a £1 shop and the batteries last for a very long time. Set it to 50 minutes. Switch off phones, email and other distractions, eg cats, dogs, babies, etc and write. Don’t worry about details just get your thoughts down.

If you finish one post, go straight on to the next. Over a few days, if you do this every day you can accumulate a lot of posts. I post on a different category each day and so I usually write several posts within one category during a single session. This way I can think within one theme without too many distractions.  I use a word processor for this first draft.

Editing

The next step is a few days before posting, usually the week before, I paste the post into WordPress and carry out my first major review. As well as proof-reading, cutting out rubbish (where does that come from?) and checking for accuracy, I also add in links and other formatting.

I assign categories and tags, and write the meta description. I also set the date and time for the post but I don’t schedule it. Once I’m happy with it, I leave it for a few days.

Usually on the day before I post I read through for the last time for a final polish. I find reading a few days apart is helpful because I take a more balanced view of the writing. Some people may want a more direct and less polished effect. That’s fine if it works for you.

How do you prepare your posts?

0 Selling Products Online

Conversations in the marketplace aim to sell something. This does not necessarily mean an exchange involving money.  The exchange may be of ideas or activities.

So, it is helpful to think about what we mean by ‘sell’. To sell something is always an exchange. If I have a product I will give it to you in exchange for something else. It works because we both receive something we value more than whatever we give in exchange.  Any of the following may apply:

The Power of Products!

The big advantage of products is that once you’ve set up your online system, people can make purchases at any time with minimal additional work for you. Setting up reliable and robust systems can be a headache but it is in reach of anyone who wants to do it. This is a major development online and has been possible for only a few years.

Two Possibilities

I can write more about any aspect upon request.

1. Things shipped to your house. So, you can order a book, some groceries or a DVD and in a day or so it arrives at your door. Some people work from home and when their sites receive orders, they package and send them off. Others use companies that manufacture, pack and send orders on their behalf.
2. Products that can be downloaded directly. These include ebooks, videos and online courses. This is an exciting area and there is much giddy enthusiasm about earning millions through massive marketing campaigns. Very few people are going to become millionaires through this route (for obvious reasons) and it is unfortunate there is so much emphasis upon generating massive income. The way I look at it is if you have something of value to others then your duty is to make it available at a fair price. Those who are interested in your product must appreciate that a fair price is one that enables you to make a living.  Many small groups in the voluntary sector could generate modest income from selling products online.

The concept of a fair price is perhaps likely to be contested. But we should not fear this because it always has been. The marketplace has to be the arena where people agree a fair price. If someone has a good product they will care about their customers and their customers will care about them.

What are your views about products online? How do we work out a fair price?

1 Testimonials and Case Studies

Testimonials

“Your business exists to generate testimonials.” That is some advice I received. If like me you are just starting out, testimonials are essential and somewhat elusive. In time, as you work for customers, you will be able to collect them.

The first thing to remember is: ask for them! You may receive them unsolicited but you may be waiting forever. I ask for a testimonial as a part of my proposal documents, so the customer knows it is a part of our agreement. Indeed, even where I am working gratis, I still ask for a testimonial. Sometimes I ask for comments on a particular aspect of the work.

You can ask for a written testimonial and it is also worth exploring whether there are photos you can use, of the customer or of something to do with the work. Some customers may even be able to prepare a video. The advantage here is that you are less likely to be suspected of editing the testimonial!

Some websites have a special section for testimonials. This is not a good idea. Why should anyone visit your testimonial page? It’s always going to sound a bit “salesy”! It’s much better to add testimonials into your copy, alongside the benefits of your product, service or cause.

Case Studies

Case studies are a fuller account of the work you’ve done for a customer. I’ve just started to think about this seriously.  I’m finding I’m often working on existing websites.   I’ve realised I should be taking screenshots before I start work on them, so that I can illustrate the changes I have made! If I keep a record of the work I do I can turn it into blog posts. If the customer is happy to contribute to the case study, so much the better. A case study is an obvious place to include a testimonial.

This is just as important with causes as it is with selling products or services. If your aim is to persuade new people to take action, you must persuade your visitors to take part. If your cause is in support of a third-party, eg you collect donations to help some group, then your evidence can cover beneficiaries as well as those who contribute to the cause.

I shall be introducing testimonials and case studies to this site over the next few weeks.  The first appeared last Friday, with Hope for the Future and there more will appear in the near future.  What approaches have you found to illustrating the effects of your work on customers, users or beneficiaries?

1 Open Space Technology

Open Space Technology (OST) is a more accessible mutual method than participatory appraisal. I first experienced OST with a local NHS Primary Care Trust who ran sessions in a couple of hours. I think it works better over 2 – 3 days, when you have time to develop ideas. However, in my experience, a group of people prepared to dedicate this amount to time without input from experts can be hard to find.

Practicalities

Informed Consent

The real problem is getting informed consent from the participants. The chances are they will have experienced nothing like it before and so informed consent is not always possible. Many simply do not believe a group of people can generate sufficient activity and creative insight without an agenda.  Done properly OST is an opportunity for generative dialogue.

Common Ground

Participants set the agenda themselves and so they need some common ground, some shared understanding of the topic of the meeting.  I’ve found explaining the method can take a long time.  Once people get going they usually find it works better than they expected.  But there’s a lot to explain about bumblebees and butterflies, the law of two feet and a whole load of process related issues.

Holding the Space

The role of the person who holds the session together needs to be understood.  It is a subtle role.  A lot of the time you don’t feel like you’re doing anything at all!  And yet your presence is essential.  You may be answering questions, reassuring people about their role, helping to resolve disputes, ensuring groups write and post reports; but a lot of the time you simply have to be present.

Long Workshop Sessions

One thing I have learned from using OST is the value of long workshop sessions.  At conventional conferences, allowing 90 minutes for group work often results in positive feedback.  People want opportunities to confer at conferences (who would have thought it?).  OST began with the observation that the best conference business happens during coffee breaks and so asked why not have one long coffee break?  This observation can be acted upon in many ways and OST is one highly developed approach.

Perhaps it’s best to start with short sessions and then offer an opportunity to meet for a longer period as participants experience the power of the method. This might work if you are operating locally. The method can also work with communities of interest across a country or internationally but obviously it is harder to get them together for preliminary meetings.

“Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide” by Harrison Owen, the person who invented the method and is the best introduction to the method I have found. It is still in print.

Have you used OST or anything like it?  How effective did you find it was at generating new ideas and insights?

1 Case Study 1: Hope for the Future

This is the first of a series of posts about my work for clients.  Several of my first projects are coming to an end and so I shall be posting about them and what I have achieved.

Assessment

This project was an assessment as promoted on my site.  Hope for the Future planned a campaign within the churches throughout the UK in the run up to the General Election in May 2015.  The plan is to persuade churches to write to the candidates in all the parliamentary constituencies about their climate change policies.  They want climate change to be a major issue during the General Election campaign.

I intend to follow their progress to see how they implement my strategy.  Circumstances will change as they respond to a developing campaign but hopefully it will be possible to see how the assessment has been helpful.

I am going to say very little at this stage about my recommendations.  The campaign has its plans and it is not for me to reveal them.  I shall say more as the campaign goes public and plan to develop further and publish some of the tools I’ve developed for their use.

This client was remarkable as I had almost nothing to do with their website.  I never had access to it.  I have made recommendations for changes to the site and at the time of writing these have not been implemented.

Resources

In common with many similar small groups and campaigns, Hope for the Future is very short of resources.  They number 4 or 5 volunteers working in two Anglican Dioceses.  They have 11 hours of paid administration and very little more.  One of the things the Internet can do is amplify the voices of a few people, so long as they use their resources effectively.  There are plenty of stories of one-person businesses that have accessed a massive market, for example.  Is it possible to launch a nationwide campaign from such a small base?  Yes, it is!  Will Hope for the Future do it?  We shall see!  If they are successful it will be through many hours of hard work carried out by a few dedicated people.

Today I shall outline the assessment’s content and in future posts, as the campaign develops, I shall explain some of the elements in the assessment in more detail.

Report

The assessment is a report with six appendices. The report suggested a new approach to their campaign.  One problem was getting feedback from my clients.  I started with a questionnaire and then drafted a few documents.  Getting feedback for these first drafts was difficult and this is something I need to think about in the future.  Towards the end I had a very productive one to one meeting, that actually transformed the assessment.  It was an example of a generative conversation.

Appendices

The six appendices were tools to enable Hope for the Future to carry out the report.  I drew not only on my understanding of online marketing but also my experience as a community development worker and working nationally with mainstream churches.  The appendices included:

1. A template for assessing potential partners.  A campaign like this, with very few active volunteers needs to build networks of partners.  So they needed a ready method to find and assess partners.  This template will help them select the most productive potential partnerships and name key contributions they might make to the campaign.
2. Guidelines for rolling out the campaign nationally.  Sheffield Anglican Diocese is the pilot for the campaign but it needs a strategy to cover four nations and all Christian traditions.
3. A review of the website and recommendations for changes.  This included some wireframes, new and rewritten copy and an outline script for a video.
4. Recommendations for the campaign in local churches.  The campaign was already accumulating experience in local churches and so there was not so much to do here.
5. A campaign schedule, particularly for the website.  It is crucial to be ready to add new material to the website as the campaign develops.  By planning ahead it is possible to ask partners to prepare website content as the campaign develops.  The schedule shows the campaign how to plan ahead; they will need to fill in the detail as the campaign develops.
6. A task list enables the planning team to identify the work that can be completed in-house and the tasks for partners.

The report showed how these various documents can be used together to support the campaign.

Testimonial

Finally, here is a testimonial from Revd Michael Bayley, who was my main contact with Hope for the Future:

Chris’ great gift in helping us work out how the website could work for our campaign most effectively was to ask the really searching questions about what we wanted to get out of it. He questioned us persistently and skilfully until we had really sorted out in our own minds what we wanted and was then able to suggest ways in which we might do this most effectively.

He used the technical questions of website design to make us think about the fundamental questions and he was also good at asking questions from “outside the box”. In one instance this led to a radical and extremely fruitful alteration to the way in which we organised the campaign.

We valued Chris’ careful and thoughtful approach; the way he listened carefully to what we wanted; the way in which he pressed us to make ourselves clear about what we wanted. We were grateful for his help which enabled us to develop the website much more quickly and effectively than would otherwise have been possible.

If you are running an online (or offline!) campaign, would this approach help you?  I’d like to hear from anyone who thinks I may be able to help.

0 Setting Up your Post-Sign-Up Email System

Last Thursday I described how to encourage site visitors to sign up to your email list. This week I shall describe, your post-sign-up email system, the things you need to prepare once they have signed up.

Confirmation Page

So, someone enters their email address into a form on your webpage. The confirmed opt-in email will appear in their inbox. This might take a few minutes. What should happen is when they press the button, they jump to a confirmation page. You give your email provider the address of the confirmation page. It should not appear in your site’s navigation.

What do you put on it?

Connect your blog to your email service

Your email service provider will provide instructions about how to do this. You can set it up to send an email every time you post or else you can send summaries once a week or at whatever frequency you like.

2 Conversations in the Marketplace

Conversations in the marketplace are likely to take place between people and about real things. This contrasts with transactions through images of the real online.

I don’t want to get too hung up over the question whether it is possible to encounter something new online. A better question is how we make best use of our machines. We need to understand them and learn how they help or hinder. The problem is we make assumptions and project them onto all our creations.

The interesting thing about idolatry in the Old Testament is that it applies equally to images of other gods and images of the God of Israel. They understood that any image is immensely seductive and will divert us from paying attention to what is actually there.

The Internet is all image and if we are not careful we converse with images, ie representations of the real but not reality itself.

Conversations Between People

Ultimately, the Internet is a means of communication, of conversations between people. Relationships build the foundations for communication.  As trust grows it is possible to communicate more. So, the role of the marketplace is primarily building trust.

So, the question is how to establish a presence in the marketplace to enable buying or selling. There are three types of things we can buy or sell, online or in real life: products, services and causes. In the next three posts, I shall look at these in turn.

The challenge is how to do this with integrity.  Do you have any ideas or experience?

4 Features and Benefits

So, you have designed your avatar! You sit down to write your first email to your new imaginary friend. You can use your avatar to distinguish features and benefits.

The point of the avatar is to humanise your writing. Have an image of a person in mind. Write to them as you might write to a real person. Your writing will come alive when people who share the characteristics of your avatar read it. So, if your avatar is a twenty year old woman, your writing might appeal to other twenty year old women. But hopefully, as your writing will be more human, ie free of jargon, it might appeal to sixty year old men as well!  So, if your avatar is not very clear, don’t worry too much, focus on writing to a human being and not a committee or a machine and your writing will be much improved!

Examples of Copy Using Features and Benefits

Here are two extracts from imaginary copy – the avatar is a twenty year old woman who likes frogs.

“Amphibiana Plus provides a system dedicated to the welfare of the garden frog. The pond meets the latest industry standards in spun polyester pond linings. It comes in several designs and provides security from predators …”

“You have been delighted at the recent plague of frogs and knowing how these beautiful creatures can control pests and enhance the interest of your garden, Amphibiana Plus has some exciting ideas. Just imagine sitting beside one of our beautiful ponds, with a unique design, watching the frogs swim around, knowing they are safe from cats and herons.”

Comparison of These Examples

Now, I’m not necessarily the world’s greatest copy writer so don’t be too critical! Do you see the difference between these examples?

1. I wrote the second with a twenty year old woman who likes frogs in mind. I’m not a twenty year old woman and so this may be a bit odd but hopefully you can see the difference it makes.
2. The first passage is about Amphibiana Plus and its product. It is copy based on features, what the product is like. There is a place for this, once the customer has decided whether they are interested.
3. The second is about benefits: frogs control pests, enhance your garden, the pond is something to sit by, frogs are entertaining and you have peace of mind that cats and herons aren’t going to get them.
4. Note the language of the first is objective, describing a product in the third person. The second is in the second person. This feels a bit strange at first but it seems this style does connect with most readers. If nothing else, using ‘you’ means you are addressing your avatar!

You need to be clear about the difference between features and benefits. People buy benefits, whether by paying money or supporting a campaign. They respond to the benefit. This may be a benefit for themselves or for some other group of people with whom they have sympathy.

People sometimes talk about WIIFM – “What’s in it for me?” This may seem crude but why should anyone be interested in Amphibiana Plus? I’ll buy a frog pond if I can see the benefit to me, not Amphibiana Plus!

How do you respond to copy online? What makes you buy?